All Assam Students’ Union demands separate zone for NE candidates

गुवाहाटी Guwahati (GWH): The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has called for re-drawing of the zones under the Indian Railways and for the Maligaon-headquartered Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) to be only in charge of the North Eastern states.

This follows the controversy generated over the alleged deprivation of youths from Assam and the North East during a recent examination by the Indian Railways to recruit 18,000 personnel in the Railway Police Force (RPF).

There have been reports that not even a single person from the North East was recruited during the drive for filling up posts of 1,000 sub-inspectors and 17,000 constables.

The AASU has demanded that recruitment for C and D category jobs in the Indian Railways be held zone-wise and the Maligaon-headquartered Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) should be bifurcated with the areas falling in Bihar and West Bengal being made a separate zone, with the NFR being left only in charge of the seven North Eastern states.

Senior Railway sources said that while they did not have the complete data about the candidates selected from various zones, the recruitment for RPF was done at a national level following centralized advertisement by the Indian Railways.

“The nodal coordinator for this round of recruitment test was the Chief Security Commissioner of Gorakhpur-headquartered North East Railway (NER). The exams were held on an all-India basis and there is no separate quota for any zone including the NFR,” said an official.

He said that the Railway Board selects one zonal railway for coordinating one such all-India basis recruitment.

“NFR had been selected as the coordinator many times earlier for various rounds of recruitment. However, selection of successful candidates is done on a national level and based on their performance,” the official said, adding that for the 18,000 youths selected this time the pre-joining training will commence on November 1.